


the debut

by localgaysian (leslytherinphoenix)



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Cartinelli - Freeform, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28476195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslytherinphoenix/pseuds/localgaysian
Summary: “Do you think secret government agencies plan for holidays?” There’s a light, teasing note in Peggy’s voice, but it’s clear she means business. Angie hears Peggy’s chair scraping against the floor and imagines her propping her stockinged legs up on her desk, high heels neatly arranged under the chair.Angie makes her Broadway debut, even though Peggy can't make it.A secret Santa fic for mistynights.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46
Collections: L&L Secret Santa 2020





	the debut

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mistynights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistynights/gifts).



„Come on, Peggy. It’s the day before Christmas.”

“Do you think secret government agencies plan for holidays?” There’s a light, teasing note in Peggy’s voice, but it’s clear she means business. Angie hears Peggy’s chair scraping against the floor and imagines her propping her stockinged legs up on her desk, high heels neatly arranged under the chair.

“The world won’t end if you take a three day trip to New York,” Angie says, twisting the phone cord around her finger. She drags her heel across the carpet and shivers a bit. The sunlight streaming into her – their, Angie reminds herself, it’s still their apartment, with Peggy’s last name on the bell and her slippers still in the closet and all –  _ their _ living room window does nothing to dampen the chill. Angie shivers.

“Angie,” Peggy says, not unkindly, but Angie can still feel the disappointment well up in her chest. Peggy sighs. “I’m so sorry, Angie. But I – ”

“I get it, English,” Angie says, and she really does, but there’s also a big part of her that had a dream of launching herself into the arms of a tall English woman on her opening night, and that part of her was maybe a little bigger than she’d originally anticipated.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Peggy promises, but there’s already a far-away note in her voice. There’s a scrape of wood against wood and the rustle of papers. “I have to go, darling, I’m so sorry.”

“Bye,” Angie says quietly, and not even the  _ darling  _ can temper the tears that well up in her eyes. For a moment she lets herself feel the disappointment before the annoyance creeps in. Peggy’s a busy girl, and even if she had the holiday off, she’d probably spend it with Daniel Sousa instead of jetting to New York to see Angie’s horrible first Broadway musical. Peggy’s talked about him on the phone, and Angie supposes he’s nice enough, though probably she’ll never think anyone is good enough for Peggy. Angie is a friend, and a friend Peggy left behind at that. It would do her good to adjust her expectations from now on.

Angie glances at the clock just in time to realize she’s late for her dress rehearsal and curses, grabbing her purse as she rushes out of the apartment.

__

On the morning of opening night, Angie wakes up to the slow fall of snowflakes, large and glistening white in the dim morning sun. She sits straight up in her bed and watches them float down past her window, momentarily forgetting the nerves that gnaw at the raw pit of her stomach. She shakes her head and slips her feet into her slippers, padding across the bedroom to pick out her clothes for the day. It’s a bit part, she knows that, but she has a few lines and a solo, and when she sings it to herself as she flits around the kitchen making tea her voice cracks, making the feeling of queasiness in her stomach even more pervasive.

She barely manages a slice of jam toast before her legs get so nervous that they pace the apartment, feeling the cold wooden floor even through her slippers. She forces herself to eat another two slices of toast, then slips out the door for her last-minute costume fitting – some dress or whatever the director wanted fitted, something about the shoulders bunching up or whatever --, glad to be out of the apartment and breathing in the crisp December air. The snow has melted already from the heat of the cars and the concrete.

Angie sighs. She received a lovely note from Peggy in the mail the day earlier, her looping handwriting wishing leg-breaking and whatnot. Angie can feel it in her coat pocket, rubbing against her blouse. She’d still prefer the real thing. Peggy puttering around in the kitchen at ungodly times at night, her coat slung over the chairs in the dining room they never use and her bright voice when she comes home.

Instinctively, she pats the pocket with the letter and smiles at the rustle of paper.

__

“You seem mopey.” Sousa rubs his eyes and leans forward, scribbling something onto a piece of lined paper. “Get some sleep.”

“I’m not tired.” Peggy stares blankly at the sheet of graphs in front of her, the text growing blurrier by the second.

“It’s 4 A.M.” Sousa sighs and scratches out whatever he just wrote. “We’re not going to solve this today.”

“I can damn well try,” Peggy huffs.

“Carter, get out of here.” Sousa suppresses a yawn. “Any Christmas plans? Need to do some more shopping?”

“Oh, not really,” Peggy says, and is about to elaborate on her plan of listening to records and doing absolutely nothing when a sudden slow sadness overtakes her. “Well, my roommate is making her Broadway debut tonight. But that’s a bit far away, I’m afraid.” Saying this she realizes there are tears in her eyes, real ones, not just because her eyes are dry and red from lack of sleep, though she’s sure they’re that, too. Christmas with Angie. Angie singing along to the record player. Hanging garland in that apartment that’s too big for them, will always be too big for them. Her hands tremble with exhaustion.

Sousa shrugs. “Flight leaves to New York every hour.”

“The show’s at 8,” Peggy says.

“Carter, go or don’t go,” Sousa says. His tone is good-natured but serious. “But you’ve been working non-stop for a week, and I know for a fact those words aren’t making any sense to you right now.”

Peggy opens her mouth to argue, but a wave of—of  _ something  _ overcomes her, and she nods slowly. “Well, alright. But if you think I’m going to be gone for a week sunning myself—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel says dismissively. “Get out of here.”

“Thank you.” Peggy gathers her things, brushes the crumbs on her desk into the wastebasket. She steps out of the room, then turns in the doorframe. “Merry Christmas, Daniel.”

__

“Note from a special someone?” Helen arches her eyebrow and leans toward the dressing room mirror, inspecting her eye makeup.

Angie starts and folds the note again, the ink already worn where the paper creases. Her ears are red with excitement and anticipation.  _ I know you’ll be absolutely wonderful,  _ Peggy had written.  _ I’ll be thinking of you.  _ “What?”

“You looked pretty dreamy there for a moment,” Helen says. “Hand me a tissue?”

Angie obediently grabs a tissue and watches Helen dab at her eye makeup. “Just my roommate.”

“Oh, she coming tonight?” Helen doesn’t seem nervous at all. Angie envies her fiercely for that, almost as much as for the large bouquet of roses her boyfriend Tommy brought her before the show. The other chorus girls bustle around them, exchanging makeup and chatting softly.

“No, she’s – she’s on a business trip to LA,” Angie says. A several month business trip. She sighs and looks down at her skirt, smoothing out a wrinkle. “How are you so calm?” Angie shifts back and forth on her stool.

“Well, you do enough shows and it gets better,” Helen says amiably. “Besides, this one’s pretty bad.”

Angie laughs at that, because it is. Some vehicle for a famous movie star who can’t really sing and spent most of rehearsal screeching at the chorus instead of learning the choreography. “Think we’ll last a week?”

“Three days at most.” Helen catches Angie’s eye in the mirror. “But you’ll be great, Ang. Never seen anyone pick up the choreography like that during their first show.”

“Thanks, Helen,” Angie says, smiling in spite of the nerves twisting in her chest. Probably good Peggy couldn’t come. Angie winces at the thought of Peggy sitting in the audience, her face impassive. Peggy isn’t one for theatre anyway.

“Places for act one,” a stagehand shouts through the dressing room, and there’s a flurry of excitement and activity as everyone scrambles to right bobby pins, fluff hair, or adjust stockings. “Places for act one!”

“Break a leg,” Helen whispers at her as they’re standing offstage, waiting for their entrance. The audience murmurs behind the curtain, and for a moment Angie imagines she can hear the voice of an English woman rising above them, but then it’s gone again, replaced only with a pang of longing. Still. She has never felt so electrically alive.

__

Peggy should have known this would never work.

It was 7.30 when she finally pushed her way through the arrivals gate. She called ahead, of course -- Howard sent some friendly looking assistant something or other to pick her up, and to take her bag, but the  _ traffic – _

Truth be told, the friendly looking assistant something or other drives like – well, like Howard really. He runs lights that are more deep orange than yellow. Peggy’s not unused to frantic and erratic driving, and tends towards risky maneuvers herself when behind the wheel, but she’s still a bit lightheaded when her chauffeur stops in front of the theatre at just one minute past eight.

After thanking the driver, she sprints towards the entrance, holding onto her purse with one hand. The entrance to the theatre is nearly empty. Peggy fervently prays the show hasn’t started yet.

“Ticket?”

_ Bloody Nora.  _ How could she have forgotten this.

“Can I still buy one?”

“Show’s sold out, miss.” The ticketing agent is an elderly woman with a kind, open face. It doesn’t help.

“Not one ticket?” Peggy rubs her forehead. “Can I stand in the back?”

“I don’t think that’s allowed.” The ticketing agent’s forehead creases. “I’m very sorry.”

“No, it’s my mistake,” Peggy says. She briefly considers using her SSR identification to fake an emergency and sneak her way in. Probably wouldn’t work. And even if it did, it might derail the show, and she knows Angie would never, ever forgive her for that.

“Do you want to buy one for next week?”

“No, I have to – I work in Los Angeles, and I have to go back by then, I’m afraid.”

The ticket agent looks at her pityingly for a moment. “I can see what I can do.”

She walks over to the ticketing booth. Peggy, deflated and defeated, leans against the edge of the building, staring over at the poster advertising the musical. It’s bright, sort of gaudy. The name of the show is in wide, flowing letters. Truth be told, it doesn’t look like something Peggy would go see on a weekend night, or even a weekday for that matter. But Angie is Angie. She smiles a little at the thought.

“Well, you’re in luck,” the ticketing agent says. “Someone didn’t pick their tickets up that they’d reserved via telephone. So if you want some horrible seats in the back of the –”

“Perfect,” Peggy says. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” the ticketing agent says.

“Really, thank you.” Peggy digs around in her bag and hands the woman a dollar bill. When she pays for the ticket, her hands are shaking. She rushes inside, the last audience members having already disappeared into the theatre proper.

An usher points her to her seat as the overture’s already starting. Peggy pushes her way to her seat in the middle of the row, mouthing her apologies at the other patrons roll their eyes and mutter in distaste.

As she finally takes her seat, she scans the faces of the chorus members that flood the stage anxiously, looking for Angie in the crowd.

__

It went badly, she thinks. Or at least not particularly well. The jokes aren’t really landing, and she could’ve sworn she saw some empty seats in a formerly packed house after intermission. Their star – a no-talent, arrogant broad if Angie ever met one – spends some time after the show sniping venomously at various other cast members backstage, blaming Helen and Tony and whoever happens to cross her path for the presumably bad reception.

Now that the show is over, the exhaustion of the day and the week before seeps into Angie’s bones. She sheds her costume quickly and pulls her thick winter coat on. They have a matinee tomorrow – then mass, then dinner at her brother’s house with his kids crowding around her and asking about all the details of her show. She smiles a bit at that, but it’s a weary smile. Mainly, she looks forward to her bed, even though the apartment will be dark and empty when she gets home. For a moment, she allows herself to imagine Peggy at the kitchen table, hair up in curlers or loose around her shoulders, wonderfully vulnerable with a mug of tea in front of her and a book in her hand.

Angie swallows and pulls her boots on, then makes sure she’s put everything in its rightful place. “See you tomorrow,” she tells Helen, who’s sitting on Tommy’s lap and chatting with the other chorus girls.

“Sleep tight, Ang.” Helen bends over to her to kiss her on the cheek.

The biting December air hits Angie square in the face when she steps outside. Her eyes water a little, exhaustion magnified by the chill. There’s a crowd outside the stage door – to be expected, with a headlining star as big as the one they have, even though she’s mainly known for the pictures. A few fans look up hopefully as Angie exits the door, then slump as they realize who she is. Angie chuckles as she walks by then, hand firm on her purse.

“Angie!”

Angie spins, the beam of the streetlight hitting her in just the wrong spot, so that she can’t see past the end of her nose.

_ “Angie!” _

The voice is unmistakable, but Angie’s mistaken everything for Peggy before. Mannequins, random women with vaguely similar facial features or hair colors, a radio playing quietly in a restaurant somewhere. She is an expert at finding Peggy in crowds where she really isn’t.

“Hey, watch it!” One of the more rabid fans yells. Angie steps out of the light and watches the crowd part –

For a moment, all Angie can do is blink. Familiar contours stare out of the dark at her, arched cheekbones, a nose’s elegant curve. Unmistakably Peggy, but there’s no way Peggy is standing in front of her, looking like she never left, bundled up neatly in a scarf and a hat. It must be a trick of the light. A hallucination. Angie must’ve fallen and hit her head backstage, and this is what she gets for not watching where she walks.

The apparition speaks. “Angie, that was – ”

“You came,” Angie says and for all of her training with projecting and whatnot her voice is so quiet she doesn’t think anyone can hear her. “Peggy, you – you came,” she repeats. Her voice is hoarse with joy. At that moment, the crowd surges – starlet must’ve come out at exactly that moment – but for Angie there is nothing except that moment where the path to Peggy is clear and she can launch herself into her arms, arms around Peggy’s neck, Peggy’s hands on her back, like they’ve always hugged, like they’re supposed to be.

Even as they’re walking, arms looped together and hands dug into coat pockets for warmth, even as they take a taxi the rest of the way home and Peggy falls asleep on Angie’s shoulder for a few minutes –when they dig out the bottle of Schnapps despite Angie’s better judgement and knowledge that she has to perform again tomorrow – even when Peggy takes her face in her hands and leans in, and it feels like a thousand things new and old at once – even when they wake together in the early hours of the morning, pressed against each other, and Angie miraculously doesn’t have a headache – even when, at the kitchen table, Peggy opens the newspaper to the entertainment section and points out an absolutely dismal review of the show that they read together, laughing, legs entwined and warm -- even then Angie still hasn’t moved past that moment of spotting Peggy’s face, her dark eyes shining like a light. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Cartinelli Renaissance 2021!


End file.
